“This farce over, a salver was brought in for each guest, on which was placed the following Japanese dishes: 1. Two small, hollow loaves, sprinkled with sesamum seeds. 2. A piece of white, refined sugar, striped. 3. Five candied kernels of the kaki [persimmon] tree, not unlike almonds. 4. A flat slice of cake. 5. Two cakes, made of flour and honey, shaped like a tunnel, brown, thick, and somewhat tough. 6. Two slices of a dark reddish and brittle cake, made of bean flour and sugar. 7. Two slices of a rice flour cake, yellow and tough. 8. Two slices of another cake or pie, of which the inside seemed to be of quite a different substance from the crust. 9. A large manjū, boiled and filled with brown sugar, like treacle. Two smaller manjū, of the common bigness, dressed after the same manner. A few of these things were eaten, and the rest, according to the Japanese custom, were taken home by the interpreter, for whom they proved quite a load, especially as he was old and rheumatic.”
Having been dismissed with many ceremonies, they went next to the house of the acting governor of Yedo, who received them with great cordiality, and gave them an entertainment consisting of a cup of tea, boiled fish with a very good sauce, oysters boiled and brought in the shells, with vinegar, a dish which, it was intimated, had been prepared from the known fondness of the Dutch for it, several small slices of a roasted goose, fried fish and boiled eggs, with very good liquor served up between the dishes. Thence they went to the houses of the governors of Nagasaki, and returned home at night thoroughly tired out, but well satisfied with their reception.
Meanwhile, the customary presents began to come in, which, in case the director was at home, were presented and received in quite a formal manner,—a speech being made by the bearer and an answer returned, after which he was treated with tobacco, tea, sweetmeats, and Dutch liquors. Besides thirty gowns from the emperor, ten were sent by each of the five ordinary councillors, six by each of the four extraordinary councillors, five by each of the three lords of the temple, and two, “pretty sorry ones,” Kämpfer says, by each of the governors of Yedo,—in all, a hundred and twenty-three, of which those given by the emperor went to the Company, and all the rest to the director, constituting no inconsiderable perquisite.
A View of Fuji
It is the custom, on the return of the Dutch, when they reach Miyako, to take them to see some of the principal temples. The first one visited by Kämpfer was the Buddhist temple and convent, where the emperor lodges when he comes to visit the Dairi. The approach to this temple was a broad, level, gravel walk, half a mile in length, lined on both sides with the stately dwellings of the ecclesiastics attached to it. Having alighted and passed a lofty gateway, the visitors ascended to a large terrace, finely gravelled and planted with trees and shrubs. Passing two handsome structures, they ascended a beautiful stairway to a magnificent building, with a front superior to that of the imperial palace at Yedo. In the middle of the outermost hall was a chapel containing a large idol with curled hair, surrounded with smaller idols. On both sides were some smaller and less elaborate chapels; behind were two apartments for the emperor’s use, opening upon a small pleasure-garden at the foot of a mountain, clothed with a beautiful variety of trees and shrubs. Behind this garden, and on the ascent of the mountain, was a chapel dedicated to the predecessor of the reigning emperor, who had been deified under the name of Genyūin.
“The visitors were next conducted across a square to another temple, of the size of an ordinary European church, supported on thirty pillars, or rather fifty-six, including those of the gallery which surrounded it. These pillars were, however, but nine feet high, and of wood, and, with the beams and cornices, were painted some red, some yellow. The most striking feature of this building, which was entirely empty within, was its bended roofs, four in number, one over the other, of which the lowest and largest jutted over the gallery. There were said to be not less than twenty-seven temples within the enclosure of this monastery.
“Up the hill, near a quarter of a mile distant, was a large bell, which Kämpfer describes as rather superior in size to the smaller of the two great Moscow bells (which he had seen), rough, ill-cast, and ill-shaped. It was struck on the outside by a large wooden stick. The prior who, with a number of the monks, received and entertained the Dutch visitors was an old gentleman, of an agreeable countenance and good complexion, clad in a violet or dark purple-colored gown, with an alms bag in his hand richly embroidered with gold.
“The largest and most remarkable of the temples seen at Miyako was that called Daibutsu, on the road to Fushimi. It was enclosed by a high wall of freestone, the front blocks being near twelve feet square. A stone staircase of eight steps led up to the gateway, on either side of which stood a gigantic image, near twenty-four feet high, with-the face of a lion, but otherwise well-proportioned, black, or of a dark purple, almost naked, and placed on a pedestal six feet high. That on the left had the mouth open and one of the hands stretched out. The opposite one had the mouth shut and the hand close to the body. They were said to be emblems of the two first and chief principles of nature, the active and passive, the giving and taking, the opening and shutting, generation and corruption. Within the gateway were sixteen stone pillars on each side for lamps, a water basin, etc.; and on the inside of the enclosing wall was a spacious walk or gallery, open towards the interior space, but covered with a roof which was supported by two rows of pillars, about eighteen feet high and twelve feet distant from each other.
“Directly opposite the entrance, in the middle of the court, stood the temple, much the loftiest structure which Kämpfer had seen in Japan, with a double roof supported by ninety-four immense wooden pillars, of at least nine feet diameter, some of them of a single piece, but others of several trunks put together as in the case of the masts of our large ships, and all painted red.”